There Have Been Times, Historically Speaking, When Crooked Politicians Went To Prison

So far Emanuel has not been arrested

The other day I was doing some research for a post about Mark Sanford and wandered onto an old (2014) City Paper piece, America's Worst Politicians. this was back in our innocence, before Putin decided who would sit in the Oval Office. Some I knew and some I didn't but there were some definite standouts besides Sanford. Illinois is a very sleazy state so it must have been hard to choose only two. One, obviously was Blowhard Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a write up by Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader. How do you do this in paragraphs rather than in volumes?

Even toward the end of his 22-year mayoral reign, when he started selling off pieces of the city to hide its escalating financial woes, Richard M. Daley had broad support in Chicago. Sure, he was a tyrannical, thin-skinned jerk who doled out jobs and contracts to his friends, but he was the people's tyrannical, thin-skinned jerk who doled out jobs and contracts to his friends. His successor, Rahm Emanuel, is simply a jerk.

At least that's how he's seen by lots of Chicagoans after his first three years in office. In a recent poll commissioned by the Chicago Sun-Times, Emanuel had the support of a meager 29 percent of city voters.

The mayor and his allies stress he's made "tough choices" to get the city back on track, starting with restoring fiscal discipline. It's certainly true he's shuttered mental health clinics, raised water fees, privatized city jobs, laid off teachers, and closed schools-- four dozen of them at once. At the same time, he's poured millions of additional dollars into non-unionized, privately run charter schools.

But it's not only what he's done; it's also how he's done it. Emanuel is widely seen as an outsider who uses Chicago as a backdrop for his broader political ambitions. Though he appears regularly in city neighborhoods for news conferences, his daily meeting schedule is filled with millionaire corporate leaders and investors, earning him the nickname "Mayor 1%" (and inspiring a book of that name by journalist Kari Lydersen). He jets regularly to Washington to maintain his national image-- yet he also has a knack for avoiding the spotlight at home when it's especially hot, such as the time he was on a ski vacation when the school-closings list was released.

Still, Emanuel remains a formidable politician. He already has more than $7 million in his campaign coffers and is prepared to raise millions more before he's up for election next February. Rahm may not be loved, but he's unlikely to go down unless some high-profile candidate runs against him, and so far, that special someone hasn't jumped into the race.

And number two wasn't hard to find-- just another from the "blowhard category," this one written up very succinctly by Keegan Hamilton, Donald J. Trumpanzee:

Though the Donald isn't technically a politician (he has never held office), he routinely threatens to run for president and perpetually inserts himself into the national political debate. From stoking conspiracy theories by offering a $5 million bounty for President Obama's birth certificate to calling the 2012 election "a sham and a travesty," Trump is the ultimate political troll.

The reality TV star and real estate magnate recently toyed with the idea of running as the GOP candidate for governor of New York before removing himself from the race. And he has donated millions to candidates from both parties over the years. While his political ambitions may be as absurd as his comb-over, Trump is a master at exploiting the media to generate semi-serious discussion of fringy ideas that would normally be dismissed out of hand.

At various times, Trump has suggested repealing campaign contribution limits, imposing a 25 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, and building a "triple-layered fence" and flying Predator drones along the Mexican border.

Trump's sideshow routine has become tiresome for some reporters (BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins compared the experience of covering the Donald's short-lived 2014 gubernatorial campaign to "donning a network-branded parka during a snowstorm and shouting into the camera about a predictable phenomenon"), but many major news outlets still find the act irresistible for the ratings and page views. And that begs the question: Who's dumber, Donald Trump or the journalists who keep feeding the troll?

Ahhh... the good old days, when he was just a target of derision. Hard to top Trump, but I really wanted to find a public official who subsequently went to prison. It wasn't that hard to find: T for Texas. The gentleman, a former U.S. congressman was sentenced to serve ten years in prison on November 7, 2018 and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Right now he is incarcerated at a medical facility of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Fort Worth. Not enough hints? Joe Tone wrote up Steve Stockman for the Dallas Observer.

There will soon come a day when Steve Stockman, the U.S. representative for the 36th District of Texas, will depart his Washington, D.C. office for the last time and fly home to southeast Texas, never to return to the city he so loathes. He probably won't fire a celebratory bullet through the Capitol dome, but he'll probably give it some consideration. Because Stockman, if nothing else, is the congressman of the gun.

It began in 1995, during the first year of his initial, short-lived stint in Congress, when he wrote in Guns and Ammo that the Clinton administration had orchestrated the siege on David Koresh's Waco compound "to prove the need for a ban on so-called 'assault weapons.'" Oddly, Stockman's political career quickly fizzled: He lost his next election. But he resurfaced in 2012 a totally unchanged man.

Less than a month after the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, he introduced the Safe Schools Act, which would have repealed federal laws keeping guns away from schools. He then vowed to pursue the impeachment of Barack Obama after the president issued minor executive orders seeking more gun control, which Stockman called "an existential threat to this nation."

Occasionally, and memorably, he has exerted himself, to fight climate change, sex education, and, in February 2013, the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protection to gay and transgender people. "This is helping the liberals, this is horrible. Unbelievable," Stockman said. "What really bothers-- it's called a women's act, but then they have men dressed up as women, they count that. Change-gender, or whatever. How is that-- how is that a woman?"

It's this rhetorical flair that journalists will miss come next January, when Stockman, after recent failed bids for the Senate and his House seat, departs Washington again, likely for good this time. The gun lobby might miss him too, but only until it gets its strings attached to the new guy.

And that reminds me... Dan Alexander wrote up the net worth of all the candidates, many of them notorious crooks, who are running for president this cycle. Here they are-- in order of "net worth"... starting with the most corrupt man in the history of U.S. politics:

• Señor Trumpanzee- $3.1 billion-- inheritance + decades of criminal activities
• Tom Steyer- $1.6 billion-- hedge fund operator
• John Delaney- $200 million-- Wall Street crook who took advantage of desperately sick people
• Michael Bennet- $15 million-- factotum for crooked Republican Philip Anschutz who built an empire in oil, railroads, telecom, real estate and entertainment
• Elizabeth Warren- $12 million-- writing books, investing
• Status Quo Joe- $9 million-- criminal and unethical activities
• Kamala Harris- $6 million-- criminal husband
• Joe Sestak- $6 million-- investing
• Beto- $4 million-- married rich
• de Blasio- $2.5 million-- investing in NY real estate
• Bernie- $2.5 million-- writing books
• Jay Inslee- $2 million-- ?
• Amy Klobuchar- $2 million-- ?
• Cory Booker- $1.5 million-- investing
• Steve Bullock- $1.5 million-- landlord
• Marianne Williamson- $1.5 million-- writing books, investing
• Kirsten Gillibrand- $1 million-- ?
• Seth Moulton- $1 million-- investing
• Andrew Yang- $1 million-- tech start-ups
• Julian Castro- $700,000-- investments
• Tulsi- $500,000-- cryptocurrency investments
• Tim Ryan- $500,000-- never had a job in his life
• Mayo Pete- $100,000-- McKinsey

This graphic shows how many billionaires are supporting each of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Do you think support from a bunch of billionaires signifies something about a candidate? 

Bernie- zero

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Ladies and Gentlemen! Texas state legislator Tony Tinderholt. When I happen upon clowns like this guy, I just have to share them with you. He's a real winner even if his bill (see the meme) is, for now, on hold.

OK. This one is almost too easy. After all, the guy in this meme is from Texas, arguably our most insane nut state, the state that has already graced us with the uber-pompously arrogant "Ted" Cruz, the braincell-challenged Louie Gohmert, Dubya, and a sad, sad history of an endless parade of chimps, assholes, and morons that have marched forth to plague America. It's not that Texas stands alone in such things (South Carolina and Alabama leap to mind), it's just that their per capita ratio of shithole politicians to decent human beings is so damn high. Remember Rep. Steve Stockman? Before he got sentenced to 10 years in the federal pen, he rode around in a care with a bumper sticker that read "If babies had guns, they wouldn't be aborted." This in a country where hardly a month goes by when we don't hear of a baby with a gun accidentally shooting a family member or itself. I guess Tony Tinderholt aims to replace Stockman in the pantheon of Texas wackjobs; after all, in Texas, for every loon that leaves the scene there are 20 more in line to replace him. What is it about Texas? Is it the blazing hot sun? Inbreeding? Snake-handling churches? Buy-Bull-ridden schools? Who knows? It just is.

Now, before you go thinking that I am being extreme and somewhat unfair, let me say that I know that not all Texans vote for these wackos. It's just the majority of Texas voters do. Oh, and remember when Texas Gov. Abbott gave creedence to the Republican conspiracy idea that President Obama was launching an invasion called Operation Jade Helm of not only his state but a few of the neighboring states as well? It was all about Obama supposedly planning to take their guns away, establish dictatorial Marshall Law and, one can only assume, also set up forced conversion to Islam, forced conversion to homosexuality, and veganism.

Poor Tony Tinderholt. He argues against abortion yet his whole being presents an argument FOR abortion, or, at least vasectomies. He reminds me of a joke about what do you get when you cross a heffer with a Texan (Answer: You get a Texan), not that I would ever use a person's hypocrisy, lack of intelligence, lunatic eyes, and/or physical appearance (Uncle Fester) to express my contempt but, hey, ol' TT just happens to be a perfect representation of typically syphilitic Republican thinking. As you ponder this guy, don't forget that 5, count 'em 5, Texas women felt that Tony was fine husband material. 5! No word as to whether or not they were consecutive wives or not.

Who Remembers Steve Stockman (R-TX)?

GOP congressional crooks Hunter and Stockman

We were sorry to see our pal Dayna Steele lose her race in TX-36 on Tuesday but proud of how strongly she and her team fought in her R+26 district where few Democrats would even try. She won just over a quarter of the votes there-- 60,486 (27.4%)-- her efforts turning out voters for Beto and other Democrats as well. In 2016 no one had run against Brian Babin at all and Hillary only took 25.2% to Trump's 72.0%. In 2014, the last time a Democrat did run there, Michael Cole got 22.0% of the vote and in 2012, Democrat Max Martin took 26.6%. Martin, though, wasn't running against Babin, but his predecessor, Steve Stockman. Remember Stockman at all? He was first elected to Congress in 1994, beating the dean of the Texas delegation, conservative Democrat Jack Brooks in a district that stretched from Galveston to Beaumont, including much of the southern part of what today is TX-36. He was defeated for re-election in 1996 having distinguished himself as Congress' foremost conspiracy theorist. He had claimed, for example, that the Waco siege had been orchestrated by the Clinton administration in order to prove the need for a ban on "so-called assault weapons."

After he left Congress, he ran for any electoral job he could find-- losing-- and finally got back into Congress again in 2012 in the brand new 36th district. Even though he had been driven into bankruptcy by caring for his father while he had Alzheimer's (and abandoning his father to die in a veteran's home) he still voted against the Affordable Care Act. After the Sandy Hook massacre he introduced a bill to repeal gun-free school zones, a subject so dear to him that he threatened to introduce articles impeachment against Obama over it. You get the picture, right?

Last year, he was arrested for the same old GOP trick that has Duncan Hunter in trouble now-- raising money-- in this case $350,000-- for a charity and then stealing it for himself. A couple of Stockman's staffers pleaded guilty to funneling even more money from from charitable foundations into Stockman's campaigns and personal bank account (at his direction).

On March 28, 2017, a federal grand jury issued an indictment that included 24 counts against Stockman, accusing him of obtaining $1.25 million under false pretenses and using the funds for his political campaigns-- 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of mail and wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to make "conduit contributions" and false statements (conspiracy to conceal the real source of the contributions by false attribution), 2 counts of making false statements to the FEC, one count of making excessive contributions, and one count of willfully filing a false 2013 Federal income tax return by not reporting some of his income. Broke by then, he was assigned a court-appointed attorney for a trial that began last January.

In April, he was convicted on 23 of the 24 felony counts against him, judged to be a flight risk, and remanded into custody pending sentencing, which happened yesterday, the day after the election. Congressman Stockman was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

According to the Department of Justice, Stockman "used a series of sham nonprofit organizations and dozens of bank accounts" to launder the money. The government proved to the jury that Stockman ran his campaign and fraudulent charities to simply enrich himself. U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick of the Southern District of Texas wrote in a press release that "this type of corruption by public officials gives our entire democratic system a black eye."

The day before, Republicans in CA-50 re-elected Duncan Hunter, Jr., a severe untreated alcoholic, indicted for almost the identical crimes Stockman is now in prison for. Hunter, the same kind of right-wing conspiracy theorist crackpot as Stockman, won reelection with 82,379 votes (54.3%), having smeared his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, as a Muslim terrorist-- he is neither a Muslim nor a terrorist-- who was trying to "infiltrate Congress" as part of a terrorist plot. The GOP plan was to keep Campa-Najjar out of the seat and then replace Hunter when he is forced to resign from Congress, with Darrell Issa, another crooked Republican thief. What a party!

Using Campaign Cash Like A Personal Piggy Bank

Can you smoke cigars in prison? Duncan Hunter may soon find out

On Thursday a federal jury in Houston ruled that Steve Stockman, a far right-wing Republican, is guilty of 23 felonies, having defrauded two conservative mega-donors and funneling their $1.25 million into personal and campaign expenses as part of what prosecutors have described as a "white collar crime spree." The lunatic fringe Stockman is now at risk of having to serve decades in prison. The prosector Ryan Patrick, son of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, described Stockman, who was taken to prison immediately after the guilty verdict was read, as a flight risk.

Another of the many ways crooked congressmembers can steal campaign funds is to retire. Once they retire they can "hire"-- at a substantial salary-- a wife or a son or a parent to "administer" the left over campaign money. On Monday, Ken Doyle, writing for Bloomberg reported that Ex-Candidates May Face Restrictions on Campaign Cash. He started with two of Illinois' finest-- Jesse Jackson, Jr, who went to prison, and Aaron Schock, who's still in a long drawn out trial-- who used campaign war chests as personal piggy banks. Duncan Hunter, Jr (R-CA) is likely to go to prison for the same thing.

The Federal Election Commission is being asked to write new rules to draw a clear, bright line so ex-candidates can easily figure out how they’re allowed to spend their backers’ campaign donations.

...The FEC has asked for public comments on a petition filed by the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which seeks new restrictions on use of campaign money by anyone no longer running for election. There’s a “disturbing trend of lawmakers leaving office with sizeable campaign chests, and then using those leftover campaign funds in ways that appear to constitute personal use,” the group wrote.

The FEC will decide after the May 21 comment deadline whether to issue guidelines or write a new rule, spokesman Christian Hilland told Bloomberg Government in an email.

The Tampa Bay Times has found almost 100 “zombie” congressional election committees that are still spending money even though there’s been no campaign for many years. Some of the zombie committees merely contributed leftover cash to other candidates, as the law allows. Others spent money on salaries, meals, travel, rent, phone bills and other expenses not clearly related to any campaign.

In addition to campaign expenses, current lawmakers are allowed to use campaign money to cover certain costs related to carrying out duties as “a holder of federal office.”

A new class of retirees soon will have to learn to live without being able to tap campaign accounts for some expenses.

A Bloomberg Government review found that 35 current lawmakers who’ve announced they aren’t running for re-election had almost $38.6 million in their campaign accounts at the end of 2017, according to the most recent FEC disclosure reports.

The biggest war chest for a retiring lawmaker is more than $6.2 million held by the campaign of Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). His campaign committee is still flush even after refunding more than $1.2 million in contributions last year, according to a year-end disclosure report filed with the FEC.

Here are the dozen members not running for reelection with the biggest nest eggs right now:

• Bob Corker (R-TN) $6,234,997
• Orrin Hatch (R-UT)- $4,980,936
• Ed Royce (R-CA) $3,678,625
• Pat Meehan (R-PA) $2,340,502
• Ted Poe (R-TX) $2,054313
• Elizabeth Esty (New Dem-CT) $1,437,905
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ) $1,406,775
• Trey Gowdy (R-SC) $1,364,419
• Ryan Costello (R-PA) $1,364,121
• Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)- $1,166,676
• Gene Green (R-TX) $1,131,194
• Darrell Issa (R-CA) $1,052,398

Note that each of them is a conservative-- what a coincidence!

Corker’s congressional office didn’t respond to a request for comment on what he plans to do with his leftover campaign money. Corker could hold money in his committee account for a future campaign, give it to other candidates or donate to charities.

Ex-candidates also can give unlimited amounts to a national committee of the Democratic or Republican party, though few retiring lawmakers appear to be doing so, a Bloomberg Government review of FEC reports found.

Another option is that a retiring lawmaker’s campaign committee can be converted to political action committee. A PAC can collect additional contributions to be used to help other candidates, but personal use restrictions would still apply under a series of FEC advisory opinions, according to commission spokesman Hilland. Campaign money given to a charity also can’t be used to pay a candidate or candidate’s family.

One retiring lawmaker, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), recently converted her campaign committee to a PAC called South Florida First. That PAC then transferred more than $177,000 to a “leadership PAC” linked to Ros-Lehtenin, called IRL PAC, which was set up almost 20 years ago. The move was allowed by the FEC under a provision allowing transfers between “affiliated committees,” Hilland said, though he noted that contributions received by affiliated committees are subject to the same contribution limits.

According to its most recent disclosure report, Ros-Lehtinen’s IRL PAC had just over $8,000 in cash last October, when it received an infusion of $177,445 from South Florida First, the congresswoman’s converted campaign committee. Afterward, the leadership PAC contributed $16,000 to other Republican candidates but also spent more than $23,000 on “operating expenditures” including hotels, meals and tickets to Disney World.

Ros-Lehtenin’s congressional office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asked the FEC in 2015 whether he could use of hundreds of thousands of dollars in leftover campaign money for “substantial post-retirement obligations arising from his 34-year tenure as a federal officeholder and, in particular his twelve years as Democratic Leader.” Unlike House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who was retiring around the same time, Reid had no provision for special government funds to run an office and hire staff, the request noted.

The FEC effectively rejected the request. Two commissioners holding Democratic FEC seats-- Steven Walther and Ellen Weintraub-- recused themselves from voting, and a third FEC Democrat, Ann Ravel, said she would support Reid’s request. Republican commissioners Lee Goodman and Caroline Hunter repeatedly questioned whether granting the request would set a precedent giving all former members of Congress wide latitude to ignore legal restrictions on personal use of campaign money in retirement.

The request was withdrawn prior to a final commission vote.

Campaign Legal Center attorney Brendan Fischer said he expects this petition to result in action because Republican and Democratic FEC commissioners generally have taken a strict view of permissible uses of campaign money, especially for retiring lawmakers.

The Jackson and Schock cases stand out because there have been so few criminal prosecutions for campaign finance violations.

After 17 years in Congress, Jackson spent most of the following two years in prison and a halfway house. He pleaded guilty to skimming $750,000 from his campaign committee to pay for such items as a memorabilia collection.

Schock was a rising Republican star until he drew attention by decorating his congressional office like the PBS television show Downton Abbey. The charges he’s fighting involve the personal use of campaign and official accounts.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) last year repaid tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign committee for family vacation and other expenses. Hunter is the subject of Ethics Committee and Justice Department investigations.

Last year, a civil enforcement case pursued for years by the FEC resulted in a court-ordered $30,000 in penalties levied against Christine O’Donnell, a former Republican Senate candidate from Delaware, for using campaign funds to pay her apartment rent. U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark rejected arguments that restrictions on personal use of campaign funds are unconstitutional because campaign spending is equivalent to free speech and protected by the First Amendment.

The Campaign Legal Center has filed an FEC complaint against the campaign committee of Mark Takai (D-HI), which reported that it continued to pay almost $6,000 per month to a consulting firm headed by campaign treasurer Dylan Beesley for 18 months after Takai died of cancer.

The group also has filed a complaint against the campaign committee of former Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), which reported expenditures for cell phone bills, lobbying-related expenses, and payments to his wife for five years after leaving office.

The new FEC rulemaking petition proposes strict limits on what people who are no longer running for office can do with excess campaign cash. “It is very difficult to see how cell phone bills, office rent, travel expenses, or club dues are expenditures 'in connection with the campaign for Federal office' if a person is no longer a candidate,” according to the petition.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 12

• Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA Campers
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominees No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination)
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce


In Part 12 we pay tribute to Arizona GOP congressional hopeful Adam Kwasman, the genius who decided it would help his primary bid to vent media outrage over a busful of supposedly terrified illegral-immigrant kiddie laborers -- who turned out to be, literally, YMCA happy campers.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers

You might want to read that heading again, to really take it in. We all know that the Republican Party isn't exactly what any normal person would call "child-friendly." Their views on things like education, the environment, climate, and health care are good examples.

It seems that one Adam Kwasman, a repug Arizona state legislator who was attempting to move on up to the U.S. House of Representatives, went and got hisself all whipped up in a wingnut frenzy -- inspired, no doubt, by the Murrieta, California, incident where groups of gun-toting FOX "News"-hound republicans screamed and bellowed like a medieval mob at a bus of immigrant children, intimidating the children to tears for all the world to see. (Alas, Adam lost the 1st CD GOP nomination to state House Speaker Andy Tobin, who failed to unseat incumbent Dem Ann Kirkpatrick.)

Kwasman knew a camera op when he saw one. Hearing through the local teabag grapevine that a whole big bus o' secret Muslim, disease-carrying furriner Central American kids was on its way, Kwasman rushed to join the cameras -- er, a protest. He tweeted:

Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law.

 And once he was on camera for the local news, it was:

I was able to actually see some of the children on the buses, and the fear on their faces. This is not compassion.

  Wow! "Ab-ro-ga-tion." This assclown better watch it -- the demographic that would ordinarily vote for him just ain't gonna vote for some guy that uses four-syllable words! Where are this man's handlers? They need to tell him that merely acting dumb and doing dumb stuff isn't enough. No, you must talk dumb, too! Keep it simple, bub.

As it turned out, the bus wasn't full of little frightened immigrant kids. The kids were YMCA campers going to a local youth academy. They were, in fact, happy, not sad. They were smiling and even taking pictures of the freaks outside who had gathered with their "Impeach Obama" signs.

Dare I say it again? They were YMCA campers on their way to a local youth academy! Now, I'm fully aware that if you say a phrase like "local youth academy" to a republican, he or she hears "FEMA camp," but these kids really were on the way to a "local youth academy."

When told that the bus was just a busload of YMCA kids, all that The Great Kwasman could muster was: "They were sad too!"

So, you see, to republicans the important thing is to make children, any children, sad. Pictures of smiling, happy YMCA campers be damned! I know what I saw! I brought the sadness, and if you elect me, I can bring the sadness to Arizona kids everyday!

Being that it was nut-state Arizona, I suppose we should just be happy that no one shot up the bus while screaming things like "Revolution!" or "Second Amendment solutions!" Sadly, it's only a matter of time.


2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination)



This one is a group effort, from a group of republicans that belong in a group home. Alas, funding for group homes has steadily dried up since the Reagan years, so all that a lot of our most insane citizens can do is babble incoherently or run for Congress. Here's a nice little list of drooling Crackpots sputtering on about the I-word:

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX): "President Obama is begging to be impeached."

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN): "[T]he president has committed impeachable offenses."

Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI): Impeachment of President Obama is "a dream come true."

Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX): "[I]f the House had an impeachment vote, it would probably impeach the president."

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX): Impeaching the president "needs to happen."

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins: "If Republicans capture the Senate, there's no more excuses about impeachment."

 It's not surprising that there's a lot of this dementia going around in republican circles. Some of the dementia victims even provide "reasons":

• Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) said that the president should be impeached over "the whole birth-certificate issue."

• Glenn Beck, the republican party's favorite oracle of conspiracy, repeatedly called for impeachment -- for "the IRS Scandal," for a plot to give weapons to Al Qaeda in Syria, and, most famously, for an imaginary cover-up of a Saudi national's role in the Boston Marathon attack.

• FOX's Mike Huckabee said the president was "worthy of impeachment" for being "Caesar acting like God."

Representative Stockman has circulated to fellow congresscritters copies of the book Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office by World Net Daily conspiracist Aaron Klein and co-author Brenda J. Elliott, who are known for writing books for what I call the Library of the Alternate Reality. Stockman hopes to launch a special impeachment investigation in the new Congress.

Master conspiracist Aaron Klein, co-author with Brenda J. Elliott of The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office. has produced -- with and without his co-author -- a shelful of crackpot page-turners that are musts for any republikook's library, including Fool Me Twice: Obama's Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed, The Mancurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists, and The Real Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don't Want You to Know. (You remember we talked about the crackpot Benghazi obsession in Part 9.)

But these people don’t just get these "ideas" from each other and from conspiracy professionals like Aaron and Brenda. Here is Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) proudly quoting an unnamed constituent as saying:

He's not president as far as I'm concerned. . . . Should be executed. He's an enemy combatant.

Clearly republicans are feeding on the insanity of other republicans. They reinforce each other. This is how Crackpot Utopia spreads. This is how they create and live in their own reality. It's viral. Stay tuned. There's no telling what Boehner's minions will get up to. Crackpot does as crackpot is.


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)

In his fab new book Just Fly the Plane, Stupid, Pearce sez:

The wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice. The husband's part is to show up during the times of deep stress, take the leadership role and be accountable for the outcome, blaming no one else.

 As usually happens with these things, the perp's spokesliars made laughable claims -- their bossman was misunderstood, his words were misrepresented, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. Their explanation even included the idea that the word "submission" is "misunderstood in society." Yeah, well, some people mistake green for red, but there's a medical reason for that. What excuse Pearce and his staff have is anyone's guess. It must be nice to live in an alternate universe where words only mean what you want them to any given time.

It gets better. Pearce's folks now say that their guy wasn't referring to others, just to himself and his submissive wifey. He was just discussing how he and the wife are trying to "grapple with the words" in the Book of Ephesians. Interesting that the Pearces spend so much time on this sliver of the Bible and not so much on so much of the rest.


TOMORROW IN PART 13, the lucky final installment of "Crackpot Utopia": TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner!

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

#

Will Steve Stockman Be The Next Republican Criminal Not Locked Up In Prison After Mikey Suits?

The Honorable Steve Stockman (R-TX), domestic terrorist

Steve Stockman made a name for himself the first time he somehow wound up in Congress. The ex-drug addict and derelict-turned right-wing extremist, involved himself with fringe anti-American militia groups and domestic terrorists and had some connection-- one that was quickly hushed up-- with Timothy McVeigh and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and caused over half a billion dollars in physical damages. The next year, Democrat Nick Lampson defeated Stockman's reelection bid 53-47%. He ran several unsuccessful campaigns for several different offices and was finally reelected to Congress in 2012 in a newly create, deep red district.

Back in Congress, he immediately set out to distinguish himself as the most radical extremist inside the GOP caucus. He was widely disliked and shunned and after a few months decided it was time to move on-- to the U.S. Senate. He ran a laughable kamikaze campaign against John Cornyn as a teabagger and ended up with 19.1% of the vote.

Usually when you see the kind of deranged extremism coupled with over-the-top opportunism-- not to mention a history of drug abuse-- corruption is always a significant part of the picture... as it has been in Stockman's case. He's gone from Congress now but his legal problems are still active. He has already been fined $40,000 by the FEC from his first term but now he seems in much bigger trouble. Hannah Hess had the story Tuesday for Roll Call:

When Stockman set up shop on Capitol Hill for his most recent stint, he promptly hired two loyal allies. Both Jason Posey, his longtime associate and campaign treasurer, and Thomas R. Dodd, had ties to the Leadership Institute, a conservative Northern Virginia center where more than half of Stockman’s campaign staff trained. Stockman and Dodd previously worked on its staff.

According to OCE [Office of Congressional Ethics], Stockman reported receiving $7,500 from Posey’s father and another $7,500 from Dodd’s mother. Each donated the maximum allowable amount toward each of the three elections-- primary, general and runoff-- in which Stockman was a candidate in 2012. After the Sunlight Foundation began poking into the matter, the campaign amended the filings.

In its 89-day review of the matter-- the maximum length of time OCE is allowed-- the office asked for testimony from Stockman, Dodd, Posey and two other members of his congressional staff. They also reached out to Dodd’s mother, Posey’s father and a certified public accountant who volunteered for Stockman’s congressional committee for testimony. Additionally, OCE requested information from the treasurer of the campaign committee, and three other congressional staffers. All 12 refused to cooperate.

...The OCE voted to send its referral to the committee in late February, a few months into Stockman’s quixotic campaign to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas Republican Senate primary. According to the OCE report, Stockman might have illegally filed false payroll forms around the time he launched the Senate bid that purported to document the firing and re-hiring of Posey and Dodd, in an effort to cover his tracks.

Stockman had lost his Senate bid by June, when the committee made the probe public in accordance with disclosure rules. Also released was Stockman’s response, a 48-page letter that slammed the OCE for perceived incompetence. The committee opted to continue a fact-finding review, rather than forming an formal investigation into charges against the outgoing congressman.

In November came the disclosure that Stockman and three of his staffers have been served with subpoenas for a criminal grand jury investigation in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

During a recent conversation in the Speaker’s Lobby, Stockman told CQ Roll Call he couldn’t talk about the grand jury but said he was complying.

The subpoena could be legal action from the FEC over failure to pay back political donations after his loss to Cornyn. Since he opted not to run for his House seat, FEC rules require Stockman to settle up with campaign contributors.

Stockman's campaign accounting reports have dozens of irregularities showing a pattern of larcenous intent. The FEC keeps threatening to audit him... but still hasn't. There is a little matter of $350,000 Stockman seems to have lined his pockets with in a way no one can understand... and he refuses to explain. The grand jury investigation hasn't wrapped up yet and there is a better than even chance that Stockman won't be allowed to spend any of that $350,000 on canteen in prison. If he were a black congressman-- like Jesse Jackson, Jr., say-- he would absolutely be going prison. Chances are the Feds can nail Stockman for accepted illegal contributions that he falsely attributed to someone else, although there are at least half a dozen different serious violations of law they can chose to indict him on, including paying featherbedding staffers with federal tax dollars even though they had other paid jobs and worked primarily on his campaign, not in his congressional office.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 1

• Princess Liz Cheney -- 2014's Smoothie of the Year?
• "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1
• And the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama's SOTU

The Curious Case of the Princess and the Senator (see No. 1)

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award

Since we're talkin' about crazy crackpot folks, why not start back in early January with the Cheney Princess, Liz, and her surprising -- and then surprisingly brief -- candidacy for the office of U.S. senator from Wyoming, the old home state of her Dr. Strangelovean Daddy Dick. Liz coulda been a contenda, or at least she thought so . . . at least for a while.

First, for purposes of frame of reference, here's a sample of Princess Liz speaking the crazy via Twitter:

Rarely do I disagree with best VP ever* but @SarahPalinUSA is more qualified than Obama and Biden combined. Huge respect 4 all she's done 4 GOP.
-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
* "Best VP ever" = Daddy Dick -- Ed.

You see, incumbent republican Sen. Mike Enzi (there are only republicans in Wyoming) was thinking of retirement. All Dark Princess Liz had to do was be gracious, courteous, and professional, or even just one of those three, and go ask him if the rumors were true and say that, if so, she would like to run for his seat. If he said that yes, he wanted to retire, she could ask for his blessing which those in the know say would have come.

But nooo! The arrogance apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She just called Senator Enzi and let it be known that she was going to run against him in the republican primary. That didn't sit well with the senator, who went all "Nobody's gonna push me out -- screw you!" on Princess Liz's royal ass. Strike One!

Now, the citizens of Wyoming happen to like Old School things, such as respect for elders, class, and earning your stripes, so Liz's bull-in-a-china-shop approach just didn't play in her state, especially when it turned out that Wyoming wasn't even really "her" state. That became clear when she thought she'd put a veneer of "local" on herself and apply for a Wyoming fishing license. She also bought a $1.9 million mini-castle in Jackson Hole, a place that real Wyoming folks regard as Hollywood East. She even bought brand-new boots and squeaky brand-new blue jeans to "look the part," and claimed to be a resident, but it turned out that Beltway Liz hadn't lived in Wyoming enough to claim resident status. She got fined $220 for her untruthfulness (another family trait!). Nothin' like finding new ways to say "I'm a carpetbagger!" Oh well, at least she didn't go and shoot one of her friends in the face on a fake bird hunt.

Princess Liz did manage, however, to wish death upon the local media when they didn't bend to her will and ran with the fish story. Now, who works in the local media? Local voters, that's who. She later said that she was referring to the liberal national media. Strike Two!

Then there was the open-range dispute with her gay sister Mary over marriage equality. The battle flew all over social and cable media. The princess mouthed the usual "marriage is between one man and one woman" crapola. It got ugly, and if you turn on your own family, why should Wyoming voters think you'll always have their back? Strike Three!

Tanking polls! You're out! Even FOX "News," trying desperately to give her some sort of gravitas, could not save her. Mike Enzi is still senator. He ought to thank Liz for making him look good by comparison. Back to the Beltway, Princess Liz!

Next time, the Cheney family might want to consider running Princess Mary the Gay. She's actually less of a princess than Liz. She's a little better-adjusted, and maybe her party could make an exception and back an openly gay person for national office. Hey, I'm not sayin' this would be sometime in this decade, but maybe in 30 years or so. Her dad will still be around due to his 15th pacemaker, an artificial liver, plenty of Depends, a jet-propelled wheelchair, and a suit made of nicotine patches. Mary's campaign slogan could be: "Wyoming, I Just Can't Quit You!"


2. "Miss Beck regrets" --
Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck



Also back in January, eternal misanthrope and conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck put on a faux hairshirt and went on Faux News to confess to Mistress Megyn Kelly about his role in polarizing the United States Of America better than Tokyo Rose ever dreamed.

I remember it as an awful lot of fun and that I made an awful lot of mistakes, and I wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language. . . . I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart and it's not who we are.

I'm moved, I tell ya. I'm moved! Why, this is almost like little Idi Amin saying he's sorry he ate all those people!

Will Beck be giving back some of the millions he's made in the service of evil? What's next? Charlie Manson says he regrets that hot August night at Sharon Tate's? Too harsh? OK, maybe Beck was just trying to chat up Mistress Megyn by showing a "sensitive side."


3. The Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama's State of the Union speech

On January 28th, President Obama gave the annual State of the Union speech. Several republican voices, including foaming-at-the-mouth talk-radio wacko Mark Levin and Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton had encouraged republican senators and representatives to boycott the speech over such issues as "amnesty," the president's "luxurious travels," and of course (say the magic word!) Benghazi. Feeling that a boycott of the speech was appropriate, Fitton said:

Imagine if half the chamber is empty.

Well, for one thing, no goofballs would be mouthing: "You lie!"

The medication-free Mark Levin went even further over the top:

Since these men and women will not use the U.S. Constitution to defend this nation, since they will not use the Constitution to confront a lawless President, worse yet, since they're funding his activities with these omnibus bills filled with all kinds of crap, what the Republicans should do is boycott the State of the Union . . . so half of the House floor, because that's where they meet, is empty.

The immensely reality-challenged Levin rambled on semi-coherently with phrases like "threatens the Republic" and "liberty and tyranny" -- all the usual republican insanity.

Seems to me that if President Obama were half the tyrant these people think he is, they wouldn't have their radio shows, columns, etc. But hey, playing the victim card can rile up the critical-thinking-challenged disciples and rake in piles of money.

In the end, just about everybody,other than far right "Supreme" Court Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia showed up, but republican Rep. Steve Stockman did indulge in his version of Crackpot Theater when he got up and walked out halfway through the speech, saying he did it over the usual perceived abuses of the Constitution, Obama's not mentioning Benghazi, Obama's alleged "wholesale violation of his oath," "failed policies," blah, blah, blah. He's from Texas, so say no more -- except, well, he did bring the rockin' racist Ted Nugent as his date. (More on Ted in the next installment of "Crackpot Utopia.")

Another one of Texas's finest, Rep. Randy Weber, tweeted out something about Obama being the Kommandant-in-Chef. Chef? There go those Texas schoolbooks again. But who ever said you needed to know how to spell in order to go into politics? As outgoing Gov. Rick Perry says, it's not an IQ test.

The media reactions were just as bad. FOX's Erick Erickson blanched at the thought of equal pay for women in a tweet during the speech, while Bush's brain Karl Rove reached all the way back to 2005 to find something to whine about on his Twit account.

The man who threatened the full faith and credit of US now lectures congress on the issue.

The biggest media farce, though, occurred the very next day on FOX-Lite CNN, where republican shill Wolf Blitzer was seen tossing soft and fluffy questions to one of his most favorite guests, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), who had given one of the not-the-historically-usual-one-or-even-two-but-three SOTU rebuttals that the laughably called "liberal media" had afforded their republican friends. On his day-after show, Wolfboy asked Cathy if she supported "equal pay for equal work."

"Absolutely!" came the response. She blathered on and on about how the GOP supports pay equality for women in the workplace, etc., etc., blah-blah-blah. Did Wolfie the bearded wonder shill then ask her why she has voted against equal pay four times? Nope, but hey, that's not what he's there to do. He just plays a journalist on TV.

I wonder if McMorris Rodgers handed her interviewer a bag o'cash after the show. "Keep up the good work, Wolfie! Reince loves you! Kiss, kiss!"

•     •     •

Well, that's it for Part 1 of "Crackpot Utopia." And I'm not even done with January yet!


TOMORROW IN PART 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy*

Part 1: Take a bow, Repugs! (*including Nico's "Janitor of Lunacy") [12/30/2013]
Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums? (Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obma: Some top Republican lies of 2013) [12/31/2013]
Part 3: No Cruz control (Rafael "Ted" Cruz in his own words) [1/1/2014]
Part 4: A great anniversary approaches! (plus more "Quote of the Year nominees") [1/2/2014]
Part 5: Everyone's a critic, including me -- Some people really try my patience (Bill-O, Howie Kurtz, E. W. Jackson, et al.) [1/3/2014]
Part 6 (and last): In the words of Dan Quayle, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" (Exploiting tragedy for a buck; Miss America's not American?; "Quote of the Year" winner) [1/4/2014]

#

What's Next For Steve Israel-- And Steve Stockman?

Stockman was never convicted for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing-- and, the Texas Republican Party being what it is these days, he even wound up back in Congress. But the former drug addict has had a number of ethics problems in the House and is now facing criminal prosecution, along with several of his staffers. Grand jury subpoenas have already been served but Stockman, who won't be going back to Congress next year, may just flee to Texas and ignore the subpoena. Stockman told Boehner that he's "consulting with counsel to determine whether and to what extent compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the House." Three of Stockman's staffers are cooperating with law enforcement and appear to be giving evidence against him.

In a scathing report made public in June, the Office of Congressional Ethics said Stockman may have violated federal law and House rules when he accepted campaign donations from two of his congressional staffers, lied to investigators and attempted to impede their work. Stockman’s campaign falsely identified the donors as family members of the employees in subsequent campaign finance reports, the OCE found. The congressman later told OCE that the staffers resigned before making the contributions and were then re-hired, according to the report.

Steve Israel hasn't been charged with any crimes yet. He's just threatening to quit Congress if he's isn't given a leadership position-- even after his catastrophic and demonstrably incompetent and corrupt two terms as a failed DCCC Chair. No one can accuse DWT of being Monday morning quarterbacks in regard to Israel. We've been consistently and very regularly exposing his incompetence and corruption for years. The New York Daily News reported Monday that feelings among his Democratic colleagues were mixed after he "made public statements immediately after the elections in which he said that while he was done serving as the DCCC chair, he wanted a place at the leadership table and would otherwise consider giving up his House seat." The News opined that "It takes some chutzpah to seek a new leadership job fresh off heading House Democrats' electoral committee in two cycles that left them with the fewest seats they've had since the 1940s."

His district has a neutral PVI and could be very easily won by a well-financed Republican. He made a deal with the GOP not to target him-- the only PVI neutral district in the country that went untargeted in 2012 ands 2014-- but with former Congressman Rick Lazio getting ready to run in 2016, Israel-- who has never had a serious contest in his life and (obviously) doesn't know the first thing how to win elections-- may feel without leadership clout to raise cash and appearances, he will be too vulnerable to win. The News report doesn't mention Lazio, who left Congress to run for the Senate (against Hillary) in 2000 when Rudy Giuliani had to step out of the race to deal with prostate cancer. Lazio was crushed by Clinton because of his shady connections to Wall Street. She beat him 3,747,310 (55.27%) to 2,915,730 (43.01%).

Before their election-day mauling was even over, Israel's Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was defending his tenure with a hard-to-sell argument: It could have been worse.

Noting an average loss of 29 House seats by the President's party in his sixth year, the DCCC pointed out it had raised funds that helped temper a GOP surge and limited lost seats to about 15.

But Israel (D-L.I.) irked some colleagues with public statements immediately after the election in which he said that while he was done serving as DCCC chair, he wants a place at the leadership table and would otherwise consider giving up his House seat.

"You'd think there would be an effort to show a little more humility," said one House Democratic source.

While the DCCC chair is an often thankless job that entails constant travel and fundraising, losing should have consequences, the Democrat said.

"Just because you willingly took this job doesn't mean you should get a reward at the end of the process," the source said.

"I don't know how you promote up someone who failed so badly," said another source, a Democratic consultant with DCCC ties. "The Democratic Party shouldn't have social promotion."

Israel declined to comment, but his office produced testimonials from a series of fellow Democrats, including defeated members.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lauded Israel's "astuteness," "management of mobilization efforts," and "messaging."

"Through what was a very tough night, Steve proved to be House Democrats' MVP," Pelosi said.

She's very loyal to her friends-- or so out of touch with reality that it should be frightening to House Democrats who are about to reelect her party leader. We've spoken to numerous defeated Democrats who all attribute their losses-- at least in part-- to Israel's abysmal job at the DCCC. One is about to publish a scathing OpEd in a major newspaper.

Israel's most likely leadership post is the chair of the Democratic Steering Committee, which oversees committee assignments. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) is leaving that post.

Through a spokesman, Pelosi, who picks panel members, declined to comment on whether she'll choose Israel.

Anger at Israel was particularly sharp among some New York Democrats in the wake of a smarting result in the congressman's own state, where Democrats lost three seats.

Democrats even failed to oust an indicted member, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island), despite spending millions on attack ads.

Critics also faulted the DCCC for failing to anticipate a close race that nearly ousted Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-Rochester).

Many cited dismal recruiting of candidates in New York.

Grimm opponent Domenic Recchia, touted by the DCCC, proved a poor candidate.

Sean Eldridge, 28, the husband of a Facebook founder Chris Hughes-- who ran against Rep. Chris Gibson in a Hudson Valley district that President Obama carried in 2012-- was quickly defined by Republicans as a youthful carpetbagger.

Aaron Woolf, a filmmaker who runs a locavore grocery store in Williamsburg, never seriously competed with 30-year old Republican Elise Stefanik in a North Country district.

"Having a DCCC Chair from New York is supposed to mean you find someone better there than the artisanal pickle-selling hipster from Brooklyn," the Democratic consultant said.

Eldridge ran in a D+1 district and was roundly rejected by voters there after spending $4,659,027, $2,840,000 from his own personal fortune. Recchia confounded everyone with his lackluster performance-- except people who know anything about him. And the artisanal pickle-selling hipster from Brooklyn... even Israel gave up on him early and wrote the Democratic-held district off as unwinnable.

Israel may have hoped he could leave politics and become a literary figure. He wrote a novel, The Global War on Morris, on his iPhone during the campaign-- instead of doing his job. It should be out in January... but people who have read parts of it all all pretty unanimously agree that F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger or John Steinbeck he'll never be. No, not even Nathaniel Hawthorne or Philip Roth or Don DeLillo.

Are We Going To Be Victims Of Climate Change? Or Are We Going To Do Something About It?

Saturday night I had dinner with Matt Stoller and Ted Lieu. Matt, a former organizer and blogger works on Capitol Hill now as a senior policy advisor. Ted, California's most accomplished state senator, is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Henry Waxman (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Venice, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, West L.A.) Matt wanted to know why Ted wanted to work in Washington. The reasons to avoid it are overwhelming, especially since Ted lives in on of the most beautiful districts in America and would have run for reelection as a state senator unopposed this year.

But Ted's response wasn't about Ted. It was about his small children and his future grandchildren. He pivoted immediately to Climate Change and the need for action on national and international basis, not just on a statewide basis, where he has already been an effective leader on the Climate Change front. Last night, Blue America launched a fundraising drive for Paul Clements, the Michigan Democrat running against the worst enemy of the planet in the whole U.S. Congress, Boehner's Energy and Commerce Committee Fred Upton. Like Ted, Clements' run for Congress is heavily tied in to and motivated by a desire to ameliorate the impact of Climate Change. On Ted's campaign website, he states clearly and unambiguously that "Climate change is the single greatest threat to California, our nation's future and our environment. As a member of Congress, I will champion legislation to reduce carbon pollution in the U.S." And then he talks about what he's already done in the state legislature and what his priorities are in Congress:

• Received 100% voting records from the California League of Conservation Voters and the the highest rating from the Sierra Club in 2013.  He has been named an “Environmental Champion” by Environment California.

• AB 32, the landmark Global Warming Solutions Act that created a statewide greenhouse gas limit that would reduce emission by 25% by 2020. (Coauthor, Chapter 488, Statutes of 2006)

• SB 1066 resulted in more than $3 million in local grants for climate change adaptation to cities such as Los Angeles and Hermosa Beach and organizations such as Heal the Bay. (Author, Chapter 611, Statutes of 2012)

• AB 800 required emergency reporting of sewage spills after an audit showed many spills weren’t being reported or cleaned up in Los Angeles County. (Author, Chapter 371, Statutes of 2007)

• AB 236 prioritized the purchase of fuel-efficient state fleet cars and required alternative fuel capable vehicles to actually use alternative fuels. (Author, Chapter 593, Statutes of 2007)

• AB 166 created a successful program for derelict boat cleanup in California’s waterways. (Chapter 416, Statutes of 2009)

• AB 1061 prevented an HOA from penalizing homeowners who want more water-efficient landscapes. (Chapter 503, Statutes of 2009)

Ted Lieu's environmental priorities:

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

• Enact a moratorium on all well stimulation including fracking and acidizing both on-shore and off-shore in California.

• Implement the Environmental Protection Agency's safeguards that would curb carbon pollution from power plants.

• Strengthen the Clean Air Act including holding polluters accountable when they have illegal emission discharges into our air.

• Increase and expand renewable energy requirements for utilities as well as increased and expanded incentives for increased development in renewable energy.

• Expand resources for water recycling, storm water capture and water conservation measures.

Four months ago, Bill McKibben invited Americans to this week's Climate Change activities in New York, where UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting a UN summit on the threats and opportunities inherent in the worldwide Climate Change crisis. "My guess," wrote McKibben in May, "is people will come by the tens of thousands, and it will be the largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change… a signal moment in the gathering fight of human beings to do something about global warming before it's too late to do anything but watch." He was correct.

Since Ban Ki-moon runs the United Nations, he's altogether aware that we're making no progress as a planet on slowing climate change. He presided over the collapse of global-climate talks at Copenhagen in 2009, and he knows the prospects are not much better for the "next Copenhagen" in Paris in December 2015. In order to spur those talks along, he's invited the world's leaders to New York in late September for a climate summit.

But the "world's leaders" haven't been leaders on climate change – at least not leaders enough. Like many of us, they've attended to the easy stuff, but they haven't set the world on a fundamentally new course. Barack Obama is the perfect example: Sure, he's imposed new mileage standards for cars, but he's also opened vast swaths of territory to oil drilling and coal mining, which will take us past Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world's biggest petro producer.

Like other world leaders, that is, he's tried, but not nearly hard enough. Consider what he told the New Yorker in an interview earlier this year: "At the end of the day, we're part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right." And "I think we are fortunate at the moment that we do not face a crisis of the scale and scope that Lincoln or FDR faced."

We do, though; we face a crisis as great as any president has ever encountered. Here's how his paragraph looks so far: Since he took office, summer sea ice in the Arctic has mostly disappeared, and at the South Pole, scientists in May made clear that the process of massive melt is now fully under way, with 10 feet of sea-level rise in the offing. Scientists have discovered the depth of changes in ocean chemistry: that seawater is 30 percent more acidic than just four decades ago, and it's already causing trouble for creatures at the bottom of the marine food chain. America has weathered the hottest year in its history, 2012, which saw a drought so deep that the corn harvest largely failed. At the moment, one of the biggest states in Obama's union, California, is caught in a drought deeper than any time since Europeans arrived. Hell, a few blocks south of the U.N. buildings, Hurricane Sandy turned the Lower East Side of New York into a branch of the East River. And that's just the United States. The world's scientists earlier this spring issued a 32-volume report explaining exactly how much worse it's going to get, which is, to summarize, a lot worse even than they'd thought before. It's not that the scientists are alarmists – it's that the science is alarming. Here's how one Princeton scientist summarized the situation for reporters: "We're all sitting ducks."

The gap between "We're all sitting ducks" and "We do not face a crisis" is the gap between halfhearted action and the all-out effort that might make a difference. It's the gap between changing light bulbs and changing the system that's powering our destruction.

It's why its so very crucial we not just march-- or cheer on the marchers-- but that we do all we can to elect candidates like Ted Lieu here in L.A. and replace enemies of the planet like Fred Upton (R-MI) and Susan Collins (R-ME) with proven environmental activists like Paul Clements and Shenna Bellows. Shenna is helping lead the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline and the proposed Portland-Montreal Pipe Line reversal to ship tar sands out of Maine's Casco Bay. "In Maine," she wrote, "just as in New York on Sunday, the grassroots are siding with the next generation to acknowledge the threat of climate change and do something about it… As a candidate for federal office, I’m proud to let Mainers know that I oppose the transport of tar sands across Maine, and if elected Maine’s next senator, I won’t need to be lobbied on the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line or Keystone XL. Everyone will know where I stand, and they can be sure my principles won’t change. My opponent, Republican Susan Collins, has not taken a position on the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line project despite the enormous stakes for our state and the nation. She has, however, voted for the Keystone XL pipeline twice and has given no indication that she’s changed her mind about tar sands. That’s a shame, because Maine has a long history of conservation and environmental leadership that needs to be upheld. We’re the home of Acadia National Park and Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Our license plates read 'Vacationland' and our state motto is 'Maine: the Way Life Should Be.' But that’s only true as long as we’re willing to stand and fight to keep it that way."

Dave Reichert (R-WA) is another phony moderate who likes to pretend he's OK on the environment and not villainous on Climate. But he's pretending. Blue America's newest endorsee, Jason Ritchie, is running against without any help from the DCCC-- and in a blue-leaning district Obama won both times. Climate Change has been one of the issues he's talked about most consistently: "The House GOP has no intention of ever protecting our environment. My opponent, Rep. Reichert, like the rest of the House GOP has voted down and walked away from every chance to protect our air and our water. They ignore science and ignore the pro-business, pro-growth American jobs that already come from renewable resource investment. If the House GOP really cared about our climate, our environment and American jobs they would fight against radicals, fight against ignorance and support renewable resource investments."

I hope you'll consider contributing to Shenna's campaign here and to Ted Lieu's, Jason Ritchie's and Paul Clement's campaigns here. Remember McKibben's words: "In a rational world, no one would need to march. In a rational world, policymakers would have heeded scientists when they first sounded the alarm 25 years ago. But in this world, reason, having won the argument, has so far lost the fight. The fossil-fuel industry, by virtue of being perhaps the richest enterprise in human history, has been able to delay effective action, almost to the point where it's too late."

You can watch the endgame of the fossil-fuel era with a certain amount of hope. The pieces are in place for real, swift, sudden change, not just slow and grinding linear shifts: If Germany on a sunny day can generate half its power from solar panels, and Texas makes a third of its electricity from wind, then you know technology isn't an impossible obstacle anymore. The pieces are in place, but the pieces won't move themselves. That's where movements come in. They're not subtle; they can't manage all the details of this transition. But they can build up pressure on the system, enough, with luck, to blow out those bags of money that are blocking progress with the force of Typhoon Haiyan on a Filipino hut. Because if our resistance fails, there will be ever-stronger typhoons. The moment to salvage something of the Holocene is passing fast. But it hasn't passed yet, which is why September is so important.

Steve Stockman, a devoted fascist and former drug addicted congressman from Texas was defeated in 1996 after he was caught conspiring with the right-wing terrorists who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. When people forgot, he slipped back into Congress in another backward, right-wing, lo-info Texas district. As you can see from his insane twitter feed today, he is carrying water for the Big Oil interests who have funded his repulsive political career. Fighting Climate Change won't be easy as long as there are corrupt politicians like Stockman, Upton, Reichert and Collins serving their own careerist interests in Congress, stomping on the interests of their own constituents-- and on humanity and God's beautiful Earth. Yeah, oogabooga, asshole!